James Barrat

[Airicist]

Personal Website - jamesbarrat.com (http://www.jamesbarrat.com)

facebook.com/james.barrat.1 (https://www.facebook.com/james.barrat.1)

twitter.com/jrbarrat (https://twitter.com/jrbarrat)

linkedin.com/in/james-barrat-01a30a56 (https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-barrat-01a30a56)

James Barrat (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Barrat) on Wikipedia

Author of "Our Final Invention: Artificial Intelligence and the End of the Human Era (https://pr.ai/showthread.php?7540)", 2013

[Airicist]

https://youtu.be/Gt0Jf-79uOE

Singularity 1 on 1: James Barrat on Our Final Invention (https://www.singularityweblog.com/singularity-james-barrat-our-final-invention)

Published on Oct 1, 2013



For 20 years James Barrat has created documentary films for National Geographic, the BBC, Discovery Channel, History Channel and public television. In 2000, during the course of his career as a film-maker, James interviewed Ray Kurzweil and Arthur C. Clarke. The latter interview not only transformed entirely Barrat's views on artificial intelligence, but also made him write a book on the technological singularity called Our Final Invention: Artificial Intelligence and the End of the Human Era.

I read an advance copy of Our Final Invention and it is by far the most thoroughly researched and comprehensive anti-The Singularity is Near book that I have read so far. And so I couldn't help it but invite James on Singularity 1 on 1 so that we can discuss the reasons for his abrupt change of mind and consequent fear or the singularity.

During our 70 minute conversation with Barrat we cover a variety of interesting topics such as: his work as a documentary film-maker who takes interesting and complicated subjects and makes them simple to understand; why writing was his first love and how he got interested in the technological singularity; how his initial optimism about AI turned into pessimism; the thesis of Our Final Invention; why he sees artificial intelligence more like ballistic missiles rather than video games; why true intelligence is inherently unpredictable "black box"; how we can study AI before we can actually create it; hard vs slow take-off scenarios; the positive bias in the singularity community; our current chances of survival and what we should do...

[Airicist]

https://youtu.be/WQ6yGkUNjqM

James Barrat - Our Final Invention - The Risks of Artificial Intelligence

Published on Dec 13, 2013


Interview with James Barrat, Author of "Our Final Invention"
Artificial Intelligence helps choose what books you buy, what movies you see, and even who you date. It's in your smart phone, your car, and it has the run of your house. It makes most of the trades on Wall Street, and controls our transportation, energy, and water infrastructure. Artificial Intelligence is for the 21st century what electricity was for the 20th and steam power for the 19th.

But there's one critical difference — electricity and steam will never outthink you.

The Hollywood clich? that artificial intelligence will take over the world could soon become scientific reality as AI matches then surpasses human intelligence. Each year AI's cognitive speed and power doubles — ours does not. Corporations and government agencies are pouring billions into achieving AI's Holy Grail — human-level intelligence. Scientists argue that AI that advanced will have survival drives much like our own. Can we share the planet with it and survive?

Our Final Invention explores how the pursuit of Artificial Intelligence challenges our existence with machines that won't love us or hate us, but whose indifference could spell our doom. Until now, intelligence has been constrained by the physical limits of its human hosts. What will happen when the brakes come off the most powerful force in the universe?

[Airicist]

https://youtu.be/fnK1CT0ccpc

Triangulation 152: James Barrat - Our Final Invention

Published on May 19, 2014


James Barrat is a documentary filmmaker and author of "Our Final Invention: Artificial Intelligence and the End of the Human Era."

[Airicist]

Article "Voices in AI – Episode 17: A Conversation with James Barrat (https://gigaom.com/2017/10/30/voices-in-ai-episode-17-a-conversation-with-james-barrat)"

by Byron Reese
October 30, 2017